Patriotism – Gone with the Wind – From Patriotism to the Artful Dodgers!
July 31, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Draft dodgers no longer carry the mark of Ca in
in Israel. They are the clever ones who find a way out of defending their country
against those
who are determined to destroy it.
The invincibility of the Israeli IDF was carried high until last year’s conflict with Hizbullah. I am not Johnny-Come-Lately on commenting concerning the change in the IDF’s capacity to wage effective warfare against the enemies of Israel. From my first excursion into the Holy Land in 1952, followed by many trips until my last in 1999, I watched a highly motivated, patriotic Israeli military slowly, but surely, decline in the zeal and pride of being a part of the armed forces. With the passage of a generation from 1967 to 2007, and as I lectured across the United States, Europe, and Eurasia, and Africa from 1978 to 2006, I often addressed my concern about this decline. I have issued several articles on it in our Archives.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
Barak: Draft dodging a security threat
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
July 30, 2007
Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Monday that the growing number of youth who dodge the IDF draft will eventually harm national security and turn the IDF from a “people’s army” into an “army of half the people.”
“When a soldier who goes out to the battlefield feels like a sucker, this harms national security,” Barak said during a conference at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security in memory of Ha’aretz military commentator Ze’ev Schiff who passed away last month.
Barak said that Israel needed to return to the days when military service was something to be proud of and draft dodgers carried the mark of Cain.
Barak added that Israel’s true heroes were those who served in the IDF.
“A society under an existential threat will only know how to survive if it respects those who defend it,” he said.
Ahead of the August draft,
the IDF reported damning statistics showing a sharp rise in the number of teenagers dodging military service. The total reaches 25 percent of youth born in 1989 and scheduled to enlist in the IDF this summer.
Of the 25%, some 11% received exemptions this year on grounds of being ultra-Orthodox, an increase of 1% over last year. Seven percent did not enlist for medical reasons, including physical and mental conditions.
Four percent did not enlist because of criminal records, and 3% live abroad.
Barak further blasted university lecturers and employers who do not accommodate students or workers who are called up for reserve duty.
“I wonder what Schiff would have said about the delegitimization that military service has been granted by elements in Israeli society starting with university lecturers who don’t find solutions for students who miss exams due to reserve duty,” Barak said.
Begin YNet News Article Number 2
July 31, 2007
Ethan Haber
Wearing a uniform with pride
Ehud Barak right to declare war on growing number of draft dodgers
Better late than never, an Israeli leader rose up Monday evening and settled scores with “half the population,” as he put it.
Half a population of draft-dodging parasites who send the other half, the “suckers,” to waste three years of their lives on climbing mountains and protecting Israel’s civilian population.
Ehud Barak, in the capacity of defense minister, rose up Monday evening and declared war – at least it should be hoped – on the many, way too many, who did not serve and are not serving in the IDF, on the backs of those in uniform.
Barak is well aware of it, and if heaven forbid he is not, he should be told: His war on draft dodgers should take top priority.
Draft-dodging is a cancerous growth gnawing away at the very foundations of Israeli society, as a nation and as a state. It is tearing the people apart and when war breaks out the army’s commander in chief may find himself at a total loss.
Ultimately, an assault on fire-spitting enemy outposts contradicts the nature of man and real combatants require a special mental capacity to rise up and take action.
Combatants who would risk their lives while the other half of the population “gives them the finger” are yet to be born.
At this time, it is important that the defense minister and other leaders end the phase of declarations and take action: Those who cannot serve for legitimate reasons must perform national service. Those who knowingly dodge the draft should sit behind lock and key instead of appearing on TV as second-rate singers.
Revive old values
From now on, the human resources division should scan its computers and retrieve the list of thousands of names of draft dodgers who should be made to undergo medical examinations. If they do not wish to serve, they will be handed a prison uniform and forced to sit out months in jail under the supervision of the military police. If it is still impossible to enlist them after this, we’ll close the universities and TV screens to singers who sing of the bravado of the IDF while they themselves did not want and still do not want to serve their country.
Yet we must all be aware that a real cure doesn’t take instant effect. It is a long drawn-out process of education instilled at home and within the educational institutions whereby old values such as the pride of donning a uniform must be reinstated, while draft dodgers
become weary of walking the streets.
“Indeed, half the population,” lamented renowned Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik in an address at the first Hebrew teachers’ convention in Odessa almost 100 years before Ehud Barak. Obviously, he had no idea that his words would be so fitting in the days of July-August 2007.
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